Wild Swimming (FullRogue / Pleasance / Bristol Old Vic Ferment)

I very much like what FullRogue are up to here. They don’t so much break the fourth wall as smash it to pieces, grind it up and serve it to the audience, alongside snacks (I’m not joking – they’ll ply you with chocolate biccies). In something like a 21st Century ‘Orlando’, we follow Nell and Oscar through the centuries, exploring attitudes to gender, literature and class, in a gleefully subversive modern idiom. Shows that involve their audience are ten a penny. Those that do so in the service of such big ideas, while having so much fun, are far rarer. FullRogue’s mission statement is stress testing plays in live performance; this is their first production, and I cannot wait to see their next.